The Wall Street Journal is also watching this sector and their insights are not very good for the coming year…..

The Farm Belt is hurtling toward a milestone: Soon there will be fewer than two million farms in America for the first time since pioneers moved westward after the Louisiana Purchase.

Across the heartland, a multiyear slump in prices for corn, wheat and other farm commodities brought on by a glut of grain world-wide is pushing many farmers further into debt. Some are shutting down, raising concerns that the next few years could bring the biggest wave of farm closures since the 1980s.

The U.S. share of the global grain market is less than half what it was in the 1970s. American farmers’ incomes will drop 9% in 2017, the Agriculture Department estimates, extending the steepest slide since the Great Depression into a fourth year.

I knew there was a good reason to give up politics; it’s just too depressing to waste much time on. I have only one query in response to such news, which is: if we don’t have any farms, from where will our food come? Not many folks in today’s world would be capable of growing their own, much less have the space to do so. Even fewer would even know how to eat at all, if it were not for grocery stores & fast-food joints….

But, then, that’s a bit too cynical for the NYT; of the 50% of the people who could read it, less than 10% would do so, so they won’t ever print that part….

Sorry for the bummer vibes, but, political science, on almost any level, just brings out my inner curmudgeon… I’ll try to at least sound more positive in future responses….